AUSTRALIA_HISTORY and other book subjects
I continue to be fascinated by attempts to categorize things.
The oddness of category choices in many taxonomies tends to make me think of Borges’s Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge and Sei Shonagon’s lists of things; for more on those topics, see column vvv: My Favorite Things.
Here’s another taxonomy that I find amusing; as usual for this sort of thing, it’s oddly specific in some areas and oddly lacking in others. This set of categories is the list given by the Subjects & Genres dropdown in Bowker’s system for assigning ISBNs to individual books. The publisher is expected to specify at least one category from the following list of 90 possible categories, which were presumably intended to cover all possible book subjects:
- AGRICULTURE
- ARCHITECTURE
- ART
- ASTROLOGY
- AUSTRALIA_HISTORY
- BIBLE_COMMENTARIES
- BIOGRAPHY
- BUSINESS
- CANADA_HISTORY
- CHILDREN'S FICTION
- COLLECTORS AND COLLECTING
- COMICS and GRAPHIC NOVELS_GENERAL
- COMPUTER SOFTWARE
- COMPUTERS
- COOKING
- CRIME
- CURIOSITIES AND WONDERS
- DRAMA (DRAMATIC WORKS BY ONE AUTHOR)
- DRAMA_COLLECTIONS
- DRAMA_HISTORY AND CRITICISM
- ECONOMICS
- EDUCATION
- FAMILY
- FICTION_ACTION and ADVENTURE
- FICTION_EROTICA
- FICTION_ESPIONAGE
- FICTION_FANTASY_GENERAL
- FICTION_GAY
- FICTION_GENERAL
- FICTION_HISTORICAL
- FICTION_HORROR
- FICTION_MYSTERY and DETECTIVE_GENERAL
- FICTION_PSYCHOLOGICAL
- FICTION_RELIGIOUS
- FICTION_ROMANCE_GENERAL
- FICTION_SCIENCE FICTION_GENERAL
- FICTION_SHORT STORIES (single author)
- FICTION_SUSPENSE
- FICTION_THRILLERS
- FICTION_VISIONARY and METAPHYSICAL
- FICTION_WAR and MILITARY
- FICTION_WESTERNS
- FINANCE, PERSONAL
- GAMES
- GARDENING
- GENEALOGY
- GREAT BRITAIN_HISTORY
- HANDICRAFT
- HEALTH
- INTERIOR DECORATION
- INTERNET
- INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS
- LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGES_STUDY AND TEACHING
- LANGUAGE ARTS
- LAW
- LITERATURE_COLLECTIONS
- LITERATURE_HISTORY AND CRITICISM
- MATHEMATICS
- MEDICINE
- MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE
- MIND AND BODY
- MUSIC
- NATURE
- NEW ZEALAND_HISTORY
- NUTRITION
- PARENTING
- PERFORMING ARTS
- PETS
- PHILOSOPHY
- PHOTOGRAPHY
- PHYSICAL FITNESS
- PHYSICS
- POETRY (POETIC WORKS BY ONE AUTHOR)
- POETRY_COLLECTIONS
- POETRY_HISTORY AND CRITICISM
- POLITICAL SCIENCE
- PSYCHOLOGY
- REFERENCE BOOKS
- RELIGION
- SCIENCE
- SELF-HELP TECHNIQUES
- SOCIAL SCIENCES
- SPIRITUALITY
- SPORTS
- TECHNOLOGY
- TRANSPORTATION
- TRAVEL
- UNITED STATES_HISTORY
- WIT AND HUMOR
- WORLD HISTORY
After perusing that list, I have so many questions! For example:
- Why do only certain countries and topics get History subjects? Australia, Canada, drama, Great Britain, literature, New Zealand, poetry, United States.
- Why are some topics very specific (BIBLE_COMMENTARIES) while others are very general (SCIENCE)?
- Relatedly, why do some general topic areas get multiple specific subjects (COMPUTER SOFTWARE, COMPUTERS, INTERNET, TECHNOLOGY), while others have to fall back to extremely general subjects?
- Why is the CHILDREN'S FICTION category not called FICTION_CHILDREN'S?
- Why are there _GENERAL categories for some genres of fiction but not others? and doesn’t having a _GENERAL category suggest that there should also be more-specific subcategories?
- Why are and (5 of the 15 instances) and (single author) the only phrases in lowercase in the whole list?
I suspect that the answer to most of those questions is essentially sloppiness—I suspect that no professional librarian or other expert in taxonomy was consulted. Which is fine; this list of categories is certainly no sillier than (for example) some lists of titles for donors that nonprofits provide. But it did amuse me enough to write a post about it.
